To write on cricket tha wants to watch it

Menu

Save the Strays! (with Celia Hammond)

I have to report that – during my brief stay in Spain – I saw no sign of what George Orwell* (amongst others, e.g. the Sun newspaper) regarded as a national characteristic – cruelty to animals.

I kept a close eye on the tower of the local church, but not once did I see a donkey, a cat – not even a vole being thrown off it. What I did see was a colony of what I suppose are feral cats, who live on the belvedere. There must be thirty or so of them, and they seem to live symbiotically with the local population. Presumably the owners of the cafes and bars feed them scraps, and there are still a few fisherman who might allow them a fish head or two. The tourists like them and I imagine they keep the mice down. As you will see, they look fairly sleek.

In England, of course, we don’t really have feral cats, though – if the newspapers are to be believed – we do have feral children. (On the other hand I have just been watching a rather depressing documentary on BBC2 about various cat rescuers – including the one-time model Celia Hammond. It is a bit of an eye-opener (available here on i-player)).